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They looked at each other now, husband and wife, with such a depth of feeling that the eight feet separating them shrank to nothing. Then, slowly, with a darkling gleam in her eye, Mrs. Marquis raised her plate above her head...and let it drop. A canvasback bone flopped free, the stewed apples few straight up, and the plate blew into a dozen pieces scattered across the red linen tablecloth.

-The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard

Edgar Allan Poe has always been one of my favorite poets. His poems, while dark and often morbid, have a certain draw to them. I guess I am not much for flowery poems - anyone can write that sort of thing - but Poe's poems are other-worldly and mysterious. So when I saw that there was a novel out there to be consumed that had Poe as one of its main characters, I had to grab it. I'm glad I did. This fiction of crime was written in a style that is more reminiscent of authors who wrote novels decades ago, and it had very unexpected twists. Poe was an interesting fixture; he seemed like one of those guys in high school or college that just doesn't fit in, but goes on to amaze people later in life. He was not the main character, however. That was left to an older, charming man (Gus Landor), who, sadly, probably never existed in real life. This murder mystery was an easy read, and hopefully we'll see Poe and/or Landor again. Good job, Mr. Bayard. I'm sure to read more of your novels.